# Police in Bhutan can raid your house for suspicion of tobacco possession



## webarnes (Jun 2, 2010)

I can't post links. Search Google for "Police raid homes in smoking crackdown" for the original Reuters story. Here's the Gawker article.

"You think anti-smoking regulations are tough in the US? Well, at least you don't have to worry about your home being raided by police with a tobacco sniffer dog, or face five years in prison for having too many cigarettes.

In 2005, Bhutan banned the sale of tobacco, but people are still allowed to buy 200 imported cigarettes each month as long as they smoke in private. But with the Tobacco Control Act, which passed by a huge majority in parliament, the Bhutan Narcotic Control Agency has been given the power to enter homes of people they suspect are smoking illegal tobacco, and they can even enter a home if they just see someone smoking. And according to Reuters, they're even training a special tobacco-sniffing dog! A police official said, "The sniffer dog is being trained at the moment. The dog will be able to sniff out tobacco products."

The prime minister of Bhutan, Jigmi Y. Thinley, doesn't think the new law is harsh at all. In fact, he basically says people are lucky they're not being treated like drug traffickers: "It is cancerous, both in the literal and the metaphoric sense, cancerous to society and to individual and in many ways it is no different from psychotropic drugs, for which the penalty in certain countries is death."

So stop complaining about having to step outside the bar in the cold to have a smoke. At least you don't have to worry about sniffer dogs and narcotics police."


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## ave (Jan 23, 2011)

Now what was that small country where you could get fined or even go to prison for having cigars from a certain country... :violin:


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## thatguy (Jan 13, 2011)

I am interested to see where this law progressed from. Was it small like here in America or was this an out of the blue ban? Makes you think about what might be down the pipeline.


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## Mante (Dec 25, 2009)

But they are all happy, apparently.



> In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world based on a global survey.


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## gibson_es (Jan 23, 2010)

Tashaz said:


> But they are all happy, apparently.


they HAVE to be putting something in the water, lol. and maybe they are affraid smoking anything, including toboacco, will couter act that and make there mind control drug, that is being dispuresed to the civilians via water, useless...... its a conspiricy! :kev:


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